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$xhtml = array(
	'<{title}>' => 'Therapy?',
	'takedown' => '2017-11-01',
	'<{body}>' => <<<END
<img src="/img/CC_BY-SA_4.0/y.st./weblog/2019/05/28.jpg" alt="Purple flowers" class="framed-centred-image" width="800" height="480"/>
<section id="diet">
	<h2>Dietary intake</h2>
	<p>
		I had 353 grams of that Aztec salad for breakfast.
		I was still hungry on my way to my $a[laser] appointment, though once I got there, I was fine.
		The salad takes a while to be filling, I guess.
		But then, by the time I got home, I was hungry again.
		The salad doesn&apos;t sustain me very long either, it seems.
		I had another 138 grams of it, then 175 grams later still.
		And finally, I had the final 483 grams that I&apos;d set aside for dinner.
		For my actual dinner, I had 397 grams of nachos.
		Throughout the day, I also snacked on 120 grams of pretzels.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="laser">
	<h2>Hair-removal appointment</h2>
	<p>
		The doctor said they didn&apos;t turn down the $a[laser] this time when I asked, but it didn&apos;t hurt as much as previously.
		I cried at the appointment when we talked about emotional topics, but the $a[laser] itself didn&apos;t bring me to tears.
		Either I wasn&apos;t clear in my question (maybe they didn&apos;t &quot;turn it down&quot;, but also didn&apos;t turn it up full blast like last time), or having fewer follicles left is reducing the pain.
		From what I gather from what they&apos;ve said, the latter option is indeed probable.
		The more follicles are left, the more energy ends up transferred to the skin, causing more pain.
		I found it a bit amusing, but the doctor forgot to give me any tennis balls this time.
		As before, they wouldn&apos;t&apos;ve helped, but they&apos;ve given me them at my other two appointments.
		The $a[laser] hurt my teeth this time though, and the doctor ended up giving me a mouth guard before working near my teeth again.
		The mouth guard cleared up the problem.
	</p>
	<p>
		We always seem to talk during the sessions.
		I&apos;m not sure if it&apos;s meant to distract me from the pain or if we just talk because we&apos;re in the same room and there&apos;s no reason not to.
		I might be getting gratis therapy out of it though, I guess.
		Well, not gratis, as this is kind of expensive, but maybe bonus therapy.
	</p>
	<p>
		They asked if I still work at the pizza place, so I gave my stock response for that: &quot;Unfortunately&quot;.
		They said we all have garbage jobs at some point, which I&apos;m sure is true for the vast majority of people, and that I was still in school, and at least I know what I want to do when I leave school.
		I admitted that I don&apos;t, and they said they thought I wanted to get into computers.
		I explained how I couldn&apos;t actually do that without compromising my ethics though, at which point it really wouldn&apos;t be worth it.
		They said I should cry out for Yahweh&apos;s help.
		That was amusing.
		I explained that I&apos;d asked for about a month for Yahweh&apos;s help with the school&apos;s censorship and gotten no response.
		Asking him wasn&apos;t getting me anywhere.
		They asked if I knew why he wasn&apos;t helping, and I said it was probably because he&apos;s not real.
		I&apos;d been asking Yahweh to humour some missionaries, but I&apos;m not a believer.
		They explained that Yahweh does what&apos;s best of us, not what we want, so I explained how censorship is terrible for my health, and leaves me perpetually drained.
		I talked about how I&apos;m no longer able to put my all into my coursework, and how I no longer have time for much else.
		What&apos;s best for me is the ending of this ridiculous censorship.
		They said I should ask Yahweh to reveal himself, I replied that I&apos;d asked for that for several months.
		They were surprised he wouldn&apos;t reveal himself after months of asking, as he&apos;d revealed himself to them.
		They actually prayed for me there in the office!
		It&apos;s amusing that people buy into this mythology, but the chances of any of it being real are exceedingly slim.
		I also mentioned that Yahweh isn&apos;t exactly queer-friendly, and I&apos;m a queer, but they disagreed.
		Yahweh&apos;s actually opposed to a lot of strange things though.
		People just don&apos;t read what the bible actually says.
	</p>
	<p>
		They asked about if I work today.
		I&apos;d expected to work today when I made the appointment, but lately, the boss hasn&apos;t been scheduling me on Tuesdays, so I&apos;ve only been working four days each week.
		The doctor thought that was bad, but I replied I wasn&apos;t too bothered.
		I&apos;m out of debt now, so I&apos;m not so desperate for money.
		I used to try to pick up as many hours as I could, but now, I mostly just work my scheduled hours.
		It&apos;s time I need now, not money.
		I mentioned that I do take hours if someone specifically asks me to, though come to think of it, I don&apos;t even always do that any more.
		They asked about where the debt came from, so I explained my former school debt, and how it&apos;d been for nothing anyway as Summer made me fail out of school, insisting I hang out with her when I needed more time to study.
		We discussed summer, including how she might be bipolar.
		we discussed how she won&apos;t make me fail out of school this time, and how I don&apos;t really talk to her any more.
		The doctor asked if that was because of school, and I explained how she doesn&apos;t accept me and said all I&apos;ll ever be to her is a penis.
		They asked about my father, and while don&apos;t talk to him much, we&apos;re on good terms.
	</p>
	<p>
		They asked my age, so I said I&apos;m about thirty.
		They then checked their paperwork, ostensibly to find my specific age, but as that&apos;s what I&apos;d put on the paperwork, that&apos;s all they would see there too.
		I didn&apos;t put a specific age, and just wrote that I was about thirty, and I didn&apos;t include a date of birth.
		I just left that slot blank.
		I&apos;m not sure why the paperwork asked for both an age and a date of birth, actually, but it did.
		Come to think of it, this doctor can&apos;t even be sure they have my real name.
		I&apos;m not using insurance, no $a[ID] is required, and I always pay for my visits in cash.
		I did give them my real and legal name though.
		It&apos;s not that I prefer to use my legal name, it&apos;s more that when I had my name legally changed, I had it changed to the name I prefer to use.
		The end result is the same though.
		Anyway, they asked how I look so young, so I took a few guesses.
		I bike instead of driving, which might keep me sort of fit.
		I&apos;ve never smoked or drank alcohol.
		I used to use caffeine, but I&apos;ve long since quit.
	</p>
	<p>
		They asked me about when I knew I was a queer.
		They didn&apos;t use that word though, and said they don&apos;t like it because it&apos;s negative.
		It&apos;s only negative if you make it negative though.
		I explained that I didn&apos;t know right away that I was different, but I started out asexual, a form of queer, and knew as soon as I&apos;d learned where babies came from.
		I knew I&apos;d never have any part of baby-making.
		I also knew I never really felt like a man.
		I didn&apos;t mention wanting a vagina back in grade school.
		I&apos;d spent years repressed in my mother&apos;s home though, and I didn&apos;t start learning what I really was until I&apos;d gotten out from under her thumb.
		At this point, I&apos;m no longer asexual, but bisexual.
	</p>
	<p>
		The doctor ended up giving me fifteen dollars off this time.
		I&apos;m not exactly sure why.
		I tried to give them the fifteen anyway, but they wouldn&apos;t.
		They tried to claim I couldn&apos;t do anything about it though.
		That was a mistake on their part.
		Try to tell me I can&apos;t do something, and I might just try to prove you wrong.
		So I left it where they&apos;d set it on the counter, an walked toward the door, saying I&apos;d leave it there.
		They talked me into taking it, but I&apos;d made my point that I very much could do something about it.
		They started telling me to get myself a coffee, but then remembered I don&apos;t use caffeine any more.
		They wanted me to get myself something though, and weren&apos;t sure what, so I recommended a salad.
		I knew I still had some of that Aztec salad in my refrigerator.
	</p>
	<p>
		Anyway, my next appointment in on the twenty-fifth of next month.
		Four weeks away.
		In the mean time, I hope to see further improvement of my face.
		I feel like I&apos;m making good progress.
		My beard has gotten patchy, my dietary course is going well, and I&apos;ve even made drastic improvements to my handwriting.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="drudgery">
	<h2>Drudgery</h2>
	<p>
		My discussion post for the day:
	</p>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Oh, wow.
			I agree, that&apos;s a pretty serious vulnerability!
			Like you said, it allows local users to obtain root privileges.
			That alone has serious implications on multi-user machines.
			However, the problem isn&apos;t limited to multi-user machines.
			The thing is, one of the reasons Linux is so secure against viruses is because the user isn&apos;t given root access to the machine.
			Usually, some user has the authority to gain root privileges, but doing so requires them to either enter their own password or enter <code>root</code>&apos;s password, depending on the configuration.
			They do what they need to with elevated privileges, then they switch back to the lesser, much-safer privilege level and go about their business.
			Some password must be known and knowingly entered to access protected files and systems though.
			A virus, for example, runs as the user and thus uses the unelevated privileges, as it doesn&apos;t have these passwords.
			If this serious security flaw were to be exploited by a virus though, that would no longer apply.
			The virus could gain the elevated privileges it needs to do whatever it wants across the whole system.
		</p>
		<p>
			I&apos;m glad to hear that bug has been patched away.
			Debian, the system I use on my own machine, uses systemd.
			I try to keep my system as secure as I feasibly can, but sometimes bugs like this pop up in any large software project.
			Thank you for bringing this former security flaw to our attention!
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</section>
END
);
